


Take Me Home Tonight

by StellarLibraryLady



Series: Star Trek Winter Holidays Series [33]
Category: Star Trek, Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies), Star Trek: The Original Series
Genre: College, Eddie Money Song, M/M, New Beginnings, New Year's Eve, Out of Character, Post-Break Up, alternative universe, song related
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-04
Updated: 2021-01-04
Packaged: 2021-03-14 04:55:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,480
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28539933
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/StellarLibraryLady/pseuds/StellarLibraryLady
Summary: It's a couple of hours before midnight on New Year's Eve, and Leonard McCoy is melancholy.  Fresh from a jarring breakup, he is trying to make some sense of his life when someone new walks into it.
Relationships: Leonard "Bones" McCoy/Spock
Series: Star Trek Winter Holidays Series [33]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/670427
Comments: 2
Kudos: 11





	Take Me Home Tonight

I feel a hunger, it's a hunger  
That tries to keep a man awake at night  
Are you the answer?  
Anticipation is running through me.  
Take me home tonight

Dr. Leonard McCoy felt… restless. And that was odd, because he figured what he should be feeling was numb. It had been only a few scant weeks since that terrible day when Sylvan had announced-- quite out of the blue it had seemed at the time-- that he was leaving McCoy and their two-year relationship. And McCoy had been rudderless ever since. How else could he feel when he thought that he had found his forever home, but it had proven not to be?

Looking back, he really should have seen it coming, he supposed. What post-graduate student wants to continue an old love affair with a middle-aged professor when he had gotten his Master’s and was headed out for his own Assistant Professorship across the country to a place that McCoy had barely heard of, let alone ever visited?

“Face it, Leonard,” Sylvan had said practically. “A long distance relationship never works. We will continue to grow, that’s true. Humans do that,” he’d said with a dismissive shrug. “As long as we were on this campus, we were growing together along the same path. But as soon as we are parted--” He shrugged again and seemed to be dismissing not only the idea, but Leonard, also, as something in the fast approaching past.

“I can come with you,” McCoy had said desperately. He wasn’t ready to be alone. He could not be alone! “I could start life over somewhere new. It’ll be fun. A new adventure. A new town,” he’d said with a growing enthusiasm as he warmed to the whole idea. “A new job!”

“Sweetie, sweetie,” Sylvan had crooned, almost mocking now it seemed. “You can’t uproot your life here. You have tenure. You busted your butt to get tenure. Remember? You can run your classes on remote on this campus if you had to. Just show up, smile, and talk. They know you here. You’re an institution here. A new place would be that: new. You’d have it all to do over again: coming up the ranks in the department, establishing prestige in a new town, chiseling out a new niche on the social scene on campus and at the country club. No, now isn’t the time for you to start over. You’ve made it here, man! You’re where we all want to wind up!”

McCoy had taken umbrage and flared at the young punk. “If you think these ivy-walls are fencing me in--”

“Leonard,” Sylvan had said softly. “You are these ivy-walls.” Then realizing how icy that had sounded, he had slapped McCoy’s arm in an old sense of comradery. “Besides, we never said that this arrangement between us would be permanent. We both went into it with our eyes wide open. We had a lot of good times. Let's not spoil it now with sentimentality.” Then he’d had the audacity to grin. “And you always had a date so you wouldn’t feel so alone at college functions. You know how much you hate to be at required functions alone. Sometimes, I thought that was my purpose. Arm candy. And to be seen, of course. That helped the both of us.”

That’s when McCoy had started to realize the truth. “It didn’t hurt that I was division chairman of the Medical Philosophy Department that you were enrolled in, either, did it? You were the golden boy of the undergraduates to the members of my division. Nobody was going to flunk you out when I would be certain to question that professor about how come my prize stud wasn’t making the grade in his class. You’ve been given preferential treatment because of it. You slept your way to a diploma.”

At least Sylvan had had the honesty not to deny it. “Hey, Leonard, the sex we shared was fun, too,” he had bragged. “I learned a lot from you, and you matured me sexually. I didn’t have to lean over for the football types in the dorm anymore. I didn’t have to be the pretty blonde boy who could take it up either end for them. And after you broke me in, you eventually let me do it to you. Now I can make the football types lean over for me. Any of them I want.” His face had hardened then. “They have to take it from me, too.” A sweet smile floated across his face and softened it. “And just because I was in solid with the faculty. Through you.”

“You make me sick.”

“I make you hard,” Sylvan had suddenly whispered as he had moved in on McCoy and cupped his hand over McCoy’s manhood. And squeezed.

And McCoy had grunted. Partly in pain and partly in awareness.

“And you want me to do it to you again, Leonard. Only harder this time. That’s what you want, isn’t it?” Sylvan had whispered hotly in McCoy’s ear. “You want to hate me, but you want me in you, too.”

In the end, McCoy had leaned over for Sylvan and had let Sylvan master him again for old time’s sake. McCoy could have protested and ordered Sylvan out, but what would that have gotten him except one more lonely night by himself? Might as well get it while he could, he reasoned. After all, he wasn’t in the philosophy department for nothing.

McCoy wasn’t very proud of himself for that last night with Sylvan. Oh, the sex had been grand and glorious. And McCoy had been fulfilled to his highest expectations. It wasn’t that.

It was because that last night with Sylvan was the night which had made McCoy realize that he was just as bad as Sylvan had been, only different. McCoy had been after hot sex with a young athlete and had gotten it. The shame was that he had provided a blonde giant who had come to college on a tennis scholarship the opportunity to get a Master’s Degree and therefore a Professorship on the college level when all he should’ve been eligible for was a coaching job at some third-rate high school after struggling to get his Bachelor's.

McCoy had been used and by someone he’d considered mentally beneath him. That's when he learned that there's a lot of ways to be smart and that they aren't all learned in the classroom.

McCoy supposed he should’ve thanked Sylvan for giving him a reason to hate him. Maybe that was why McCoy was restless now instead of being still numb from their breakup. McCoy was probably actually further down the road to recovery this way than he would’ve been.

At least this breakup hadn’t been as messy as when Harriet had left him. She had bawled and screamed like a banshee that he had taken the best years of her life and had cheated her out of her position that she should have been enjoying by then in the upper-crust social circles of some stylish city somewhere. She was finding what she was needing on a college campus, so she had left. He’d heard she’d married some minor politician in Milwaukee last year, so maybe she was now becoming the society leader that she’d always craved. Being a faculty dame hadn’t appealed to her, but now she could have her preferred kind of prestige. 

So much for a cute twist on a cheerleader’s butt. That was what had caught McCoy’s attention that time. He’d been fresh out of graduate school and at his first teaching job on a college campus. Harriet had been a Freshman co-ed who’d been out after SOMEONE. She hadn’t really cared who, and so that mismatched pair married and had stumbled through nearly ten years of a childless marriage together before she’d wanted out.

And now he was at the stage of life when his own children should be graduating from high school and striking out on their own. And here he was the one striking out, starting life over. Something didn’t quite seem right with that scenario. He didn’t quite know what. And maybe that was why he was feeling restless.

I get frightened in all this darkness  
I get nightmares. I hate to sleep alone  
I need some company, a guardian angel  
To keep me warm when the cold winds blow.  
I feel a hunger.

He probably shouldn’t have gone to the nightclub that catered to the college crowd that New Year’s Eve, but he hadn’t wanted to stay home another lonely night by himself, either. Somehow, if he had done that, it would’ve been like admitting that Harriet and Sylvan and several others whose names he couldn’t quite recall now had been right about him. That he was a social pariah and not fit to be out with others of his species. And so he had struck out that night because he wanted to prove that he was a social animal who needed to be in the society of other people.

But it felt so awfully alone sitting by himself at this table, watching other people having fun together. It was a mistake to have come here. He would just get up and leave--

“Dr. McCoy. How pleasant it is to see you this evening.”

The voice broke into his thinking and McCoy had to think for a moment to remember where he was. He probably even had raised a rather blank looking face to the possessor of that voice before the sounds of the other party goers assaulted his ears again.

“Mr. Spock. How pleasant it is to see you this evening, too.”

Not exactly sterling, but the best that McCoy could come up under the circumstances. Spock should’ve been happy that McCoy had come up with his name, even though they were colleagues at the university and taught in the same building.

“I saw you sitting over here all by yourself and I wondered if I might come over to visit with you for awhile,” Spock continued.

“Well, I, uh, that would be fine. Fine. Be seated. Be seated!” And he found that as he swept his arm around for Spock to take any chair he wanted-- since they were all available-- that he felt stupid. But he also felt a smile lighting up his face and eyes. How long had it been since that had happened?

“So. Are you here with other people tonight?” McCoy asked and felt stupid again. Here he was, cutting off Spock’s ace in the hole of getting away from McCoy anytime he wished if he had some undisclosed ‘other people’ who were waiting for him to return. McCoy knew how he would feel about some jerk who had cut off his escape route for him.

Spock gave McCoy a pleasant, tight-lipped, but noncommittal smile. “Why, I am with you now, sir, so why would the presence of other people or the lack of them in my life mean anything to us at the present moment?” 

And with that question, Spock had told him off, had made him feel special, and had put a very sudden personal feeling of intimacy to their meeting.

“Well, uh….” McCoy stammered and wanted to slip a sharp knife between a couple of Spock’s floating ribs to rid him of that shit-eating smile. Anything to wipe that hard, brittle, jeering smirk off Spock’s face. He supposed he’d feel better about it if Spock showed his teeth when he smiled. But this, this what McCoy was seeing was just a facade and not the real man.

Maybe his heart was bleeding all over the place from Sylvan’s departure, and McCoy just didn’t know it. But this Spock did, and for some reason was going to use this moment of weakness to get something from McCoy.

McCoy got steely-eyed as his spine stiffened and he sat up. “You said that you wished to see me about something.”

“Oh, yes. I did.” Then Spock was distracted by a waiter who took his order of white wine. He glanced at McCoy. “Doctor? May I buy you a refill of whatever you are drinking?”

“Bourbon. Neat. Thanks,” he said as he deflated. Perhaps he shouldn’t be so belligerent to Spock. Maybe the guy was just curious about something. And he was buying McCoy a drink. That at least made the guy a gentleman and a person of taste.

“I wanted to ask you about a paper you recently had printed by the university’s press,” Spock started.

McCoy looked startled. “You mean that someone actually reads those missives that the faculty is required to write and submit? They are so dry and the topics are so minute. The only one who could possibly be interested is the writer and some poor undergrad who had to do a paper on that particular professor’s theories.”

There came that tight-lipped smile of tolerance again. “Perhaps our simple labors at the word processor seem tedious and lackluster to some, it all adds up to the mass of accumulated knowledge for mankind.”

“Now you sound condescending and priggish,” McCoy snapped and wished for the first time in a long time that he had a cigarette in his hand. Not to smoke, but to have something to fiddle with so his fist wouldn’t shoot out and punch this Spock character right in the mouth. Then maybe he could find out if the guy had teeth inside that hole in his face, or if he was toothless and that was why he kept his mouth shut so much when he smiled.

“Perhaps," Spock answer amiably. "We may not see the value of our own individual contributions, but just the fact that we have this means of passing our ideas onto others gives credence to the fact of our existence.”

“Oh, yeah, I forgot. You’re a Philosophy teacher alright, ain’t you? Now it makes sense.” And McCoy gave him a tight-lipped smile of his own, but his was full of sadness and almost bitterness and pain.

“And it was your brilliant deductions about Medical Philosophy which I found so intriguing in your recent thesis.”

“Maybe you were simply ready to hear what I had to say.”

“There is that, too,” Spock said as he accepted the new drinks from their waiter. “Knowledge is nothing unless there is someone to receive it.”

“Basic to our teaching,” McCoy acknowledged as he picked up his new drink, tipped his head, and saluted Spock with the glass. “Like the tree falling in the forest. The crash can only be heard if something with eardrums is there to receive vibrations of the sound.”

There was that tight-lipped smile back. “Well spoken.”

McCoy decided not to challenge that smile again. Maybe it was part of the guy’s defense system. How rude of him to strip the guy of that when McCoy was suddenly hoping that the guy would respect his own boundaries.

“Now, just what was it you would like to know about my paper, Mr. Spock?”

“Oh, I am afraid that a subject like that cannot be breached in a single sitting.”

“You could try,” McCoy pushed with a mocking voice of his own.

Instead, Spock asked, “Do you sail, Doctor?”

“No, but I understand that you do,” McCoy said smoothly. He was starting to like the give and take of conversing with this guy. It was interesting to see what would come out of his mouth next. If McCoy would've guessed until the New Year rang in, he would’ve never come up with the topic of sailing. But here it was. Sailing!

Spock’s smile seemed warm this time. “I do sail. In fact it is quite a hobby of mine. I prefer sailing on Chesapeake Bay, but I don’t get down there very much anymore.”

“And it’s rather snappy out on our waters up here right now to go sailing, eh?” McCoy questioned with glinting eyes and all the teeth he could crowd into a smile. “Bit of a chop out there tonight, as they say.”

“Look, I know you are hurting.”

There was that sharp feeling of intimacy back, and McCoy jerked as if he’d been stung by a bee. Or by someone who knew more about his private affairs than McCoy had supposed.

“What the hell does that have to do with anything?!” he snapped. “What do you know about my life, anyway?!”

“Perhaps I was mistaken to come over here. You just looked so lost and lonesome.” He put his hands on the table to push himself up. “Forgive me for interfering. I will leave you alone now.”

“Wait!” McCoy put out his own hand as if he was going to grab Spock’s, but he stopped short of doing that when Spock did not finish getting to his feet. Instead, he just stared at McCoy.

“I guess a college campus is like a small town,” McCoy finally said. “Word gets around about what happened to me.”

“Yes,” Spock said simply without explaining further.

But that got McCoy curious as he studied Spock. “So how come you want to get involved with someone who’s apparently wearing his heart on his sleeve?” His non-smile was bitter as he looked aside. “You don’t want to hear me bitch and moan about my troubles.”

“We all have problems, Doctor. We all have troubles.”

Then McCoy seemed to remember hearing something about Spock losing a longtime relationship of his own lately, too. Must be the season for it, McCoy smirked to himself. New year in, old romances out.

“And something in your paper helped me to sort through some of my own personal doubts,” Spock confessed.

“I said something at the right time to help someone?” McCoy asked hopefully. After all of these years, had he reached the mind of someone? He had always thought it would be a student. But a colleague would be alright, too, he decided now that he thought about it.

“I just wanted to tell you that,” Spock said as he started to get up. “I will leave you alone now.”

“Wait! I mean, stay. Stay a moment. Please,” he said to Spock’s piercing stare that was noncommittal, but a little interested, too. 

Spock settled down again and contemplated his white wine, but kept his attention on McCoy. “Yes, Doctor?” he finally encouraged, as much as someone would use water to prime a pitcher pump.

“Look, I don’t know what’s going on with us,” McCoy started, then stopped. He had no idea where he was going from here. “But let’s find out." He steeled himself, then plunged straight in. He had to find out for sure. "Take me home tonight,” he finished in a harsh whisper.

Spock looked startled. “What?!”

McCoy raised his voice. “I said--”

“I heard what you said,” Spock interrupted. “I do not understand why you would propose something like this.” He seemed to zero in on McCoy closer. “You know what will happen when we get to my rooms, do you not?”

“Would that be so bad?” McCoy asked desperately, feeling fragile and foolish all at once.

“Afterwards. Afterwards is what I am fearing,” Spock admitted.

“I fear it, too,” McCoy whispered. “But we gotta try. We can’t stop trying, or else we’re the same as dead. It might not go anywhere, but we gotta try. Do you understand what I’m telling you?”

Spock studied him. “Yes. Yes, I believe that I do. Come,” he said rising.

“What are we going?” McCoy asked as he obeyed.

“To pick up some white wine and bourbon from the nearest store. It is still a couple of hours before midnight, so the stores will still be open. We can see the New Year’s in together and toast it properly before we toast a new beginning for us.”

“I didn’t know you were a man of optimism, Mr. Spock.”

“There are a lot of things you do not know about me, Doctor. But we will allow time to learn about each other.”

“You should know that I’d probably get seasick on a sailboat,” McCoy informed him. "I'm not much of a sailor."

Spock studied him for a long moment and then showed him two rows of strong, white teeth in a grin that hinted of an underlying dry sense of humor. “As if you really believe that we will ever get around to sailing.”

McCoy nearly crowed! Joy surged through him and that was something he hadn't felt in a long time. But he had a notion that his life was changing now, and for the better.

Sylvan who?!

I feel a hunger, it's a hunger  
That tries to keep a man awake at night.  
Are you the answer?  
I can feel you whet my appetite  
With all the power you're releasing.  
Anticipation is running through me.  
Take me home tonight.

**Author's Note:**

> I own nothing of the song "Take Me Home Tonight" by the late Eddie Money, nor do I represent his estate. I also own nothing of Star Trek, its characters, and/or its story lines.


End file.
